


Mrs. Badrinath on the Kailash Yatra

by Cherepashka



Category: Canterbury Tales - Geoffrey Chaucer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Himalayan Setting, Alternate Universe - Hindu Pilgrimage, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Feminist Themes, Gen, Iambic Pentameter, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Inspired by Poetry, Most Meta Thing I Have Ever Written, Narrative Drift, POC Wife of Bath, Poetry, References to The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, References to the Mahabharata, The Wife of Bath's Tale, as mentioned in canon, deconstruction of literary canons, medieval literature, multiple versions of medieval romances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-25
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-15 08:44:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16059587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cherepashka/pseuds/Cherepashka
Summary: The Pardoner challenges the Wife of Bath's narrative choices. She, of course, has a ready response.(In which the Canterbury crew gets recast as 21st-centuryyatris, Chaucer gets twisted into ajalebi, and the author gets academic credit for shameless self-indulgence.)





	Mrs. Badrinath on the Kailash Yatra

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this a while back for an English class and was eventually persuaded to revisit and post it, slightly edited and with the professor’s permission, for anyone who might enjoy it (i.e. all three of you, you delightful nerds). 
> 
> The "Chose Not To Warn" is because the poem obliquely alludes to the Wife of Bath's experiences with intimate partner violence (which she references in her Prologue in _The Canterbury Tales_ ) and to the rape that occurs in her Tale (again, referenced in canon). Neither of those is actually depicted here.
> 
>  _Yatra_ (Sanskrit) means "travel" or "journey"—or "pilgrimage". Mount Kailash, also called Gang Rinpoche, is located in western Tibet and considered sacred in various South Asian and Southeast Asian religious traditions. Circumambulation of its base is a well-known pilgrimage.

April again, but then, it seems it always  
is as we start to stir, stray from the hallways,  
set forth, seek faith, take breaks, make waves, ring bells,  
find new ways to invoke old gods, or tell  
an old tale in new meter or new rhyme—  
—Spring’s just another word for story-time. 

Besides, there’s but a narrow gap to thread  
‘twixt melt and monsoon, when it’s safe to tread  
the narrow pass of Drolma La1 in spring,  
a trek we took as tourists. (Here’s the thing  
to note, though: you could raise your visa odds  
if you checked off “Religious Pilgrim,” gods  
being better bets than trekkers. Or at least  
that’s how we snagged our spots.2) And so, from east  
of Kathmandu, through Nyalam, through Tibet,  
we trundled, trading tales with those we met  
to break the ice, pass time, or simply greet  
a friend, and ease the miles for weary feet.  
(I thought in _tisram_3 till I lost that language,  
Dactylic triplets of immigrant baggage,  
but iambs come more freely now, and so  
I’ll share this story in that form.)

Here goes: 

Our group was nearly thirty, give or take,  
plus mules, a yak or two. We made the lake4  
within two weeks. They say it cleanses sin  
(if you can stand the cold you’re cleansing in).  
The first of us to test that glacial bath  
was—well, let’s call her Mrs. Badrinath.

Of course she went in first. Her sari sodden,  
plodding, big-hipped, making waves, she strode in  
till she stood waist-deep—then ducked, and rose,  
shucked off her _pallu_ , challenged us: “Who goes  
next then?” She swayed and staggered back to shore,  
a dainty _shilabalika_5 of yore  
now clad in life, well-padded, twice a wife  
and then thrice more, or so she claimed. The strife  
this history provoked, she scorned. “ _Bas_ , _bas_ ,”  
she’d scoff, to still the protests, “such a fuss!  
My husbands never made of widowhood  
the ruckus all you _sadhus_ do! And would  
I marry them if I did not know how  
to manage them? The first was from Lucknow  
and traded in Benares silk. He’s gone  
now, couldn’t long keep up with me....” And on  
and on she went while wringing out her hair,  
her sari clinging, doubtless well aware  
of all the stares she drew (she knew!), and, true:  
“My fifth and final husband’s home to do  
whatever husbands do when I’m away.  
You see, he’s learned to let me have my way!”  
At that, a dangerous and knowing glint  
lit up her glance. She tapped her ear, a hint,  
perhaps, to me and other big-hipped girls  
of violence felt and violence dealt: the churls  
that men become, for all we find them fine  
and fair at first. 

Some things don’t change with time. 

She shared a story later on that night,  
when we had drawn around the cook-stove’s light  
and warmth, of a young _kshatriya_6 whose life  
was forfeit till he swore to make his wife  
the crone who gave the answer that he sought,  
with which his own survival must be bought.  
The riddle: _What do women most desire?_  
“Well, Draupadi, if asked, would have said _fire_ —”  
and here she added, parenthetically,  
“she had five husbands too, so let mine be—  
and Amba, _vengeance_ , but, from what I’ve heard,  
Subhadra had it best: wasted no words,  
just took the driver’s seat and cracked the whip,  
and carried off her man.7 And that’s the tip  
the crone gave to the _kshatriya_. Said she,  
‘What women most desire is sovereignty.’”  
It was a tale we all had heard before;  
but it was different as she told it, more  
_masala_ , maybe more of truth as well. 

“That isn’t how it went! Come, come, now tell  
it properly!” the Pujari8 broke in.  
(He’d preached in every village stop of sin,  
and preached to us, “To teach a crowd to trust  
your temple-dust, to dazzle, not disgust,  
you must arrive prepared,” with plastic gods  
and ersatz _rudraksha_ ,9 and gilded odds-  
and-ends for puja-fires, and little flasks  
of ‘Ganga’ water well perfumed to mask  
their faint mud-puddle scent. Prepared indeed  
he was; departed yet more so: he freed  
more sacred seeds and painted beads from stalls  
we passed. “Earthly attachments, friends, are walls,”  
he droned. “It is to liberate their cares  
that I so lightly liberate their wares.”)

Cried Mrs. Badrinath, “Oh, is it not?  
Then tell me where I erred, or lost the plot.”  
Her voice was light; her smile, though, gained an edge.

The Pujari, careless, approached the ledge,  
replying, “First, the _kshatriya_ agreed  
to wed the crone to save his king and free  
him from a debt, not to atone for rape!”  
He looked around, as if to share the jape  
with other men. “And sentenced by a queen?  
A queen in judgment? Hah! See what I mean?”  
He laughed and went on, “Too, the whole affair  
began because some land was claimed, but fair  
remuneration to its lord not paid.  
How far off from the proper path you strayed!  
And of your errors, that’s not yet the worst:  
The crone was not the flirt you claim, but cursed.  
Some jealous relative—an aunt? stepmother?—  
one female—classic!—ruining another.”10

“And is that all?” said Mrs. Badri then.  
“Your version must be of, for, and by men.  
But who, I ask, painted the lion? Lest  
you all forget, the lion did digest  
the man in that story. Yet still I hold  
the tale unfinished and the truth untold,  
for isn’t it the lionesses who  
control the hunt? And don’t you think we too  
have tales to tell amid the prey we fell?  
Of course a male tale-teller wouldn’t dwell  
on rape, but sell instead a sweeter tale  
of kingly debt, and land annexed, a sale  
then consummated at the last by trade  
of wealth for woman’s hand. Of course it made  
sense to a man to swap a man’s attack  
against a woman’s body for a tract  
of land. Men always deemed us property  
in any case, to hoard or barter. See,  
that’s _why_ it took a queen to pass the sentence:  
Men seldom ask for other men’s repentance.  
And why should my tale’s heroine assure  
her husband of fidelity before  
he’s earned it? He at least, I must assume,  
mended his ways at last, or else we doom  
him and his kind to worse, if men can’t learn  
to change, to grow, to listen, live, and earn  
back trust.... I think they can. So life advances  
through our munificence with second chances.  
_Achcha_ , that’s something, isn’t it? And think,  
if it were not the case”—she gave a wink—  
“how bored I’d be in bed at night! —Although  
my husband knows: he slips again, I go!”

The Pujari, nonplussed and gaping, stared,  
and no reply to this pronouncement dared.  
But Mrs. Badrinath just raised a brow,  
and said, “Who’ll tell the next tale for us now?” 

She finished out the trek astride a mule,  
its hips and hers a-sway, the heavy jewel  
that pierced her nostril glinting in the sun.  
I followed them on foot. When we were done,  
and Kailash just a distant rearview peak,  
she called me _beti_ , laughed, and pinched my cheek.  
It’s ten years since, and April, as I write.  
And Mrs. Badrinath? Long out of sight.

  
  
  


_________________________________

1 The pass of Drolma La, at about 5,600m, is the highest point on the Kailash circumambulation trail.

2 It should be acknowledged, however, that religious and recreational travel in Tibet can substantially easier for people like the characters here, who are Hindus from India (and for Westerners), than for Tibetans and especially Tibetan Buddhists. The political realities of Chinese occupation make it difficult if not impossible for members of the Tibetan diaspora to enter the region, while Tibetans living there face internal barriers to free travel.

3 _Tisram_ denotes a three-beat rhythm in Carnatic music. 

4 The lake referred to here is Lake Manasarovar, also called Mapam Yumtso, near the base of Mount Kailash. 

5 A _shilabalika_ is a stylized sculpture of a woman, often with exaggerated breasts and hips, usually depicted dancing, playing music, or arranging her clothes or hair beneath a tree. _Shilabalika_ sculptures are a prominent element of temple architecture in parts of India. Alternate names: _shalabhanjika_ , _madanika_.

6 _Kshatriya_ refers to the warrior-nobility caste in the Hindu caste system. Casteism and caste-based discrimination remain major issues in India today.

7 The version of Subhadra’s elopement with Arjuna to which Mrs. Badrinath alludes here, with Subhadra acting as the getaway charioteer, is to my knowledge unattested in any of the surviving Sanskrit manuscripts of the _Mahabharata_ , which depict this episode as a forcible abduction. The version where Subhadra is a consenting and active participant occurs in some oral traditions and has been widely popularized by television adaptations of the _Mahabharata_. Some view it as a feminist revision that empowers Subhadra; others see it as a misguided attempt to sanitize the misogyny of the original. Either way, Mrs. Badrinath's adoption of this version may suggest that her familiarity with the _Mahabharata_ derives mainly from oral storytelling and popular television rather than classical manuscripts.

8 The Pujari is of course this AU's version of the Pardoner. Chaucer's portrayal of the Pardoner in _The Canterbury Tales_ offers rich fodder for critique, but once again, alas, there was only so much that would fit here given the constraints of form, length, and deadline involved.

9 _Rudraksha_ , the seeds of the _Elaeocarpus ganitreus_ tree, are traditionally used as prayer beads when dried.

10 The Pujari’s version of the story, which he evidently considers authoritative, derives from _The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle_ , which may be found [here](http://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/hahn-sir-gawain-wedding-of-sir-gawain-and-dame-ragnelle). 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, questions, kudos all appreciated. (I have omitted all my long footnote rants about the treatment of female characters in the _Mahabharata_ , but will gladly chat about that or any other bits of this with anyone interested.)


End file.
